I’ve only managed to do 2 boxes. I have way too much stuff. Books are the biggest culprit – I have 4 boxes full of books, and I still have 2 entire bookcases to empty. I de-cluttered recently and purged a load of books so the ones remaining I do actually want to keep.
I could just be ruthless though. I could get rid of all the books I’ve already read. Non-fiction I like to keep for reference, and I need all my textbooks for my PhD, but fiction? Does it need to stay? I don’t know. Decisions decisions.
(Of course this is an ideal excuse for procrastinating when I should be organising, tidying and packing.)
Why does the Andrex puppy never grow up?
Last weekend I watched The Net. I love that movie, despite its age. I must get it on DVD. Anyhoo…
I’m taking a data manipulation course today. We are using a fake dataset, from a fake company (a supermarket), that contains a list of customers belonging to a loyalty card scheme. Included in the dataset is a list of everything purchased by every customer at every store they visit. This data lets the company see how much milk Joe Nobody buys at his local branch and how many times he visits a store at lunchtime (as well as what he buys). The company uses this data to work out how to make Joe spend more, for example looking at his favourite brand of breakfast cereal and giving him a discount if he buys in bulk.
In a bored moment (of which there have been many) I realised that this is how Tesco know to send me coupons for soya milk (I drink a lot of it) and how Boots know to remind me when there are offers on Clinique (my favourite skincare brand).
Combining this realisation with the effort I’ve had to exert to avoid Creepy Guy made me think of The Net. The concept of the film is far from outdated: information. Information on us. I’ve been wondering who knows what about me. And how dangerous it is. Creepy Guy knows my name; a simple google search could tell him where I work and how to contact me there. He already has my home phone number so if he has an old phone book and some patience he could find out where I live.
Information is valuable to companies: they can market to us individually through store card schemes by monitoring the frequency, value and composition of our purchases. Social networking sites can confirm which people we know and who we speak to most often. Some people (for example T) even advertise their address, telephone numbers, email address, workplace, marital status, birthday etc, and post status updates like “T is on holiday”. In other words “T’s flat is empty, burgle her while she’s away”.
I am not on Facebook. I’ve quit Twitter. I’m now ex-directory and I have a secret email address for my friends and family only. I have a new mobile number which I have only given to certain people. But I’ve been thinking: what other information is out there? Is there a way to find out? I would love to know what information exists about me, out there, in The Net. I dare say I would have it all erased. Wishful thinking.
